In homes and building structures of today, one typically finds such provided with a heating system adapted both to heat and cool the particular structure. In addition, especially in the case of a dwelling or home structure, it is quite common to have numerous hot and cold appliances or working units in the home. For example, one might find any one of the following appliances or working units in a household: water heater, room heater, freezer, air conditioner, clothes dryer, or refrigerator. In such appliances, one finds that they all are provided with their own heating or cooling mmeans. This, of course, means that such appliances or working units operate independently of other such appliances or working units and that substantial duplication exist relative to the numerous heating and cooling means.
At the present time, people are very energy conscious and there is considerable energy conservation movement here in the United States as well as all over the world. In providing a system where the individual hot and cold working units each have their own heating or cooling means, one finds that this type of system is inherently inefficient. This is because of the great amount of duplication presented by providing separate heating and cooling means for each working unit when all of the working units could be seved by a single central heat pump. In addition, in a system where the working units are independent of each other, there is no opportunity to harness and take advantage of the thermal energy given off as waste heat by the individual units. For example, in cooling, an air conditioner gives off heat that could be utilized by a hot appliance or working unit. Therefore, it is appreciated that if the individual hot and cold units were integrated into a single system that the thermal energy given off by each of the working units could be utilized by other working units of the system, thereby greatly increasing the overall efficiency of the total energy using system.